#ICSEX – Dinner Conversation

This is part of a blogging series that the Idea Camp with help from Dan King put together leading up to their conference in Las Vegas.  I’ve written about all the subjects so far and each topic has a link to a list of the other blogs in the series.  On my blog, all posts for this topic are marked with the hastag #ICSEX.

I heard a report today that children WANT to sit down at the dinner table and have dinner with the entire family present.  This ranges from 8 year olds up to 17 year olds.  I think this is wonderful.  For the longest time all we were hearing about was how the television has replaced dinner conversation and how the internet was corrupting children away from their parents, and it’s nice to hear some good news about the next generation for a change.  But I’ve always wondered what constitutes dinner conversation in a Christian household.  In case you weren’t sure I didn’t grow up in that setting and I decided to talk to some of the kids I work with and see what they had to say and what they said actually bothered me.

#ICSEX: Slavery week – 146

This is part of a blogging series that the Idea Camp with help from Dan King put together leading up to their conference in Las Vegas.  I’ve written about all the subjects so far and each topic has a link to a list of the other blogs in the series.  On my blog, all posts for this topic are marked with the hastag #ICSEX.

He went into a brothel with an undercover cop to see the operations.  They were escorted to a room with a two-way mirror behind which a number of girls were sitting or standing with numbers around their necks.  The idea was to “order by number” as it were.  Complete anonymity for the client and complete dehumanization of the prostitutes.  He looked at the girls and saw dead eyes, empty expressions and a complete loss of life, except for one: girl 146.  She had fight in her eyes.  She had life still.  At most, she was eleven years old.

Top 10 Posts

Well I’m at about the 6 month mark with this blog and figured now would be a good time to take a look at what my big hits were.  Here are my top ten posts.

10) Christians are Weird, Get Over It: This one was interesting because it was here I first met Robert: an atheist who was more than happy to challenge me…at least it came across that way.  My point in the post however, is that we can’t expect to define a Christian “norm” because we’re all so freaking weird.

9)#!CSEX: Sexual Abuse: I was really struggling with this one.  Here I join the team from the Idea Camp leading up to the discussion in Vegas and talk about Sexual Abuse and role the Church takes in healing it.

8) Star Wars and the Holy Spirit: OK I had a lot of fun with this one, I’m really glad it made the top ten.  What does Star Wars teach us about the Holy spirit?  hmmm ask Yoda you shall.

7) Science Fiction/Fantasy or In It but not Of It: What does it mean to be in the world but not of it?  I use Science Fiction and Fantasy as my examples.

6) Religion vs Spirituality: What’s the difference and where do they meet?

5) Dear Father – ooo! Shiny!: The problems of being ADD and having general issues when focusing and how that impacts my personal prayer life.

4) #ICSEX: Orientation Week – a Question of Identity: Yes, that is homosexuality I’m talking about there.  The main point I make is that we can’t talk about the “homosexual issue” if we won’t even allow the LGBT community to discern an identity in Christ.

3) Simple Reminders: one of my personal favorites, I parcel out a few simple reminders for everyday Christian living.  As of 8/31/2010 there are still a few of them that I would like to write separate posts on to expand a bit, but I feel pretty darn good about it.

2) 31DBBB Feedback : So I started this blog BEFORE Ourchurch.com started their 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project, but I was lucky enough to be one of the people chosen for peer review in the midst of the project.  Most (but not all) of the people who viewed or commented here were checking me out thanks to Paul Steinbruek and crew.

1) #ICSEX: Pornography : My first post in the Idea Camp’s let’s blog about sex series.  I think it speaks pretty well for itself.

#ICSEX: Orientation Week – a Question of Identity

I have an acquaintance that is in a very peculiar situation.  His family is Christian, very staunchly and conservatively Christian, and he is gay.  His mother is convinced that “those gays” convinced him to join their “hedonistic den of iniquity” by giving him gifts.  The rest of the family may not say it aloud but they agree that their favorite son was seduced to homosexuality through lavish gifts.  In other words, they are convinced that their son was bought.

Now I could talk about the Christian response to homosexuality, but there are two bloggers who do it much better than I.  The first is Andrew Marin who maintains the blog “Love is an Orientation.”  Great blog about homosexuality and the church I strongly recommend that everyone read it.  The second is Dan King who recently wrote a post as part of this series which I recommend you read here. This is all part of The Idea Camp’s !CSEX project which you can read about here. What I want to talk about is the LGBT identity within Christian communities.

#ICSEX – What is a Man?

This is part of a discussion with The Idea Camp leading up to a conference in September to discuss Sex and the Church.  Feel free to check out other posts in this series.

The Disney Movie Mulan is a lot of fun and I’m all aboard for the great message this movie speaks except for one key musical sequence.  Besides the fact that it’s kind of campy and generally irritates my theatrical sensibilities I don’t like the message it sends.

“Be a man/ you must be swift as the coursing river/with all the force of a great typhoon/ all the strength of a raging fire/ mysterious as the dark side of the moon.”

Interesting side note, has anyone else noticed that the development of the masculine as a little-talked-about subject?